Re: 8.0-RELEASE and "dangerously dedicated" disks
Polytropon wrote: On Wed, 2 Dec 2009 13:09:22 -0500, Jerry McAllister wrote: Good. Except that in FreeBSD land you are talking about a slice table. To carry things forward consistently, the partition table is within a slice and describes FreeBSD partitions a..h (and more now I guess). Only in MS or Lunix land should primary divisions be called partitions and then they are _primary_ partitions. To be most precise, they are called "DOS primary partitions". As far as I know, the need for them has been massively by MICROS~1 operating systems (DOS, "Windows"). That what FreeBSD calls partitions are subdivions of slices. A partition holds a file system (each), while a slice holds partitions. Those partitions could be compared to what MICROS~1 calls "logical volumes inside a DOS extended partition", allthoug that's just a *comparison* and not an exact equivalent. But, even some of the fdisk and other documentation still mucks this up and occasionally refers to slices as partitions. Maybe we can come up with some new terminology like 'blobs' and 'dollops' to get away from the problem. Borrow some artificially created fantasy words from modern KDE or Gnome application development? :-) An idea that follows your inspiration could be: (old) slice => (new) primary partition eq. DOS primary partition (old) partition => (new) secondary partition, alt. (new) subpartition comp. logical volumes inside a DOS extended partition But it would help to get at least FreeBSD's documentation consistent, even if it uses the non-MICROS~1 names for things (which is very fine for me). Note that the limitation to 4 slices per disk - we remember that we are talking about "DOS primary partitions" here - is grounded in the fact that MICROS~1 stuff doesn't seem to be able to handle more than 4, a legacy restriction from the past. I've not yet tested if it's possible to create e. g. ad0s1, ad0s2, ad0s3, ad0s4 and ad0s5 with FreeBSD, but it should be possible. (Because multi-booting PCs respectively their operating systems eat up primary partitions like coockies, often people complain that they can't install FreeBSD because it requires a primary partition as well. Mostly, people don't have 4 OSes on their disks, but the one or two they often have (e. g. a Linux and a "Windows") have already occupied adX0..adX3.) Hi all, Out of curiousity, I just tested to bsdlabel a disk I had lying around. In dangerously dedicated mode. No problem at all. I newfs'd it and mounted it. Also no problem. I haven't tried to boot from it though, but I may do that later, when I have nothing running that can't be halted. I did config -x /boot/kernel/kernel and I noticed that GEOM_PART_BSD was there, though I'm absolutely certain I haven't included it, and if I understand correctly, it shouldn't be there unless explicitly included? I'm running 8.0-RELEASE-p1 amd64 with a custom kernel config. However the kernel config file was more or less copied from 7.2, with just a little tweaking. I guess I should create a new one, using sys/conf/NOTES and sys/amd64/conf/NOTES as guidelines and sys/amd64/conf/GENERIC as template, but I haven't gotten around to that yet. Anyway, is GEOM_PART_BSD supposed to be there (I just checked, and noticed it's in sys/amd64/conf/DEFAULTS) or can I safely remove it? And will it, considering I migrated to gpt and zfs, be meaningful to remove it (e.g. will it make the kernel smaller or have any positive impact on zfs performance)? And should DD disks work except to boot from, or shouldn't they work at all? Sincerely, Rolf Nielsen ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"
Re: 8.0-RELEASE and "dangerously dedicated" disks
On Tue, Dec 01, 2009 at 08:34:05PM -0800, Randi Harper wrote: > I'm going to just reply to all of these at once. > > On Tue, Dec 1, 2009 at 1:03 PM, Jerry McAllister wrote: > > On Tue, Dec 01, 2009 at 07:59:42AM -0500, Maxim Khitrov wrote: > > > On Sat, Nov 28, 2009 at 12:28 PM, Peggy Wilkins wrote: > > > > Due to history I won't go into, all my production (currently > > > > 7.2-RELEASE) systems are installed onto "dangerously dedicated" > > > > disks. What exactly do I need to do to upgrade them to 8.0? > > > > (I'm not asking for an upgrade procedure, I'm familiar with > > > > that, but rather, how this change impacts the upgrade.) I think > > > > that the suggestion that the disks need to be reformatted is > > > > extreme and I hope something less extreme will suffice. > > Just to point out the obvious, you shouldn't use "dangerous" and > "production" in the same sentence. :) Fun with ambiguities aside, I think it's fair and reasonable to interpret "dedicated" as "dedicated to FreeBSD", and "dangerous" as "may not work with common third-party disk tools or an older BIOS". It's similarly fair to interpret any caveat, implicit or otherwise, against using "dangerously dedicated mode" as a general recommendation aimed at new users (typically in dual or multi-boot environments), and not a statement that dangerously dedicated mode is unsuitable for production environments. It certainly doesn't state or suggest that it's a convenient but deprecated feature that might be removed without notice or warning in the future. Which is what's happened. In that light, the statement in the release notes merits a fuller description as well as an explanation for the change. > > > > Also, just to be clear, does this statement refer to boot disks, > > > > data disks, or both? > > > > > > > > It doesn't make sense to me that "dangerously dedicated" could > > > > have an impact on UFS filesystems specifically. A partition > > > > table is just a partition table, regardless of what filesystems > > > > might be written on disks, yes? Am I misunderstanding something > > > > here? > > > > I don't know why it would have an affect, but they say it does. > > Did you see all the mailing list chatter about new installations > > failing due to sysinstall not being able to newfs device names that > > didn't exist? This is related. Also, a partition table isn't just a > > partition table. It's a little more complex than that. It has > > *nothing* to do with the filesystems inside. It has everything to do > > with the way that FreeBSD looks at the drive to figure out what's on > > it. See man pages for geom/gpart. There are others that have given a > > better explanation than I can provide (marcus, juli). Search the > > archives. FreeBSD is known for, among other things, the consistent quality of its documentation. As it stands, the statement "dangerously dedicated mode for the UFS file system is no longer supported" in the release notes stands in direct contradiction to the official Handbook (updated to include 8.0-RELEASE) Section 18.3.2.2 which states "you may use the dedicated mode". A suggestion to search the (multiple) archives for chatter suggests that authoritative information can now be found on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying "Beware of the Leopard". Perhaps you could provide something more specific, or a direct link to the chatter? > Trust me, I didn't remove DD support from sysinstall just to > > make life more complicated for everyone. I did this because as it > > stands right now, it doesn't work. Regrettably, the end result is the same. That's not to say we wouldn't grumble and then happily settle for something less. Provided that something amounted to more than "no longer supported because it doesn't work". -- George ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"
Re: 8.0-RELEASE and "dangerously dedicated" disks
On Wed, 2 Dec 2009 13:09:22 -0500, Jerry McAllister wrote: > Good. Except that in FreeBSD land you are talking about a slice table. > To carry things forward consistently, the partition table is within > a slice and describes FreeBSD partitions a..h (and more now I guess). > Only in MS or Lunix land should primary divisions be called partitions > and then they are _primary_ partitions. To be most precise, they are called "DOS primary partitions". As far as I know, the need for them has been massively by MICROS~1 operating systems (DOS, "Windows"). That what FreeBSD calls partitions are subdivions of slices. A partition holds a file system (each), while a slice holds partitions. Those partitions could be compared to what MICROS~1 calls "logical volumes inside a DOS extended partition", allthoug that's just a *comparison* and not an exact equivalent. > But, even some of the fdisk and other documentation still mucks this > up and occasionally refers to slices as partitions. Maybe we can > come up with some new terminology like 'blobs' and 'dollops' to get > away from the problem. Borrow some artificially created fantasy words from modern KDE or Gnome application development? :-) An idea that follows your inspiration could be: (old) slice => (new) primary partition eq. DOS primary partition (old) partition => (new) secondary partition, alt. (new) subpartition comp. logical volumes inside a DOS extended partition But it would help to get at least FreeBSD's documentation consistent, even if it uses the non-MICROS~1 names for things (which is very fine for me). Note that the limitation to 4 slices per disk - we remember that we are talking about "DOS primary partitions" here - is grounded in the fact that MICROS~1 stuff doesn't seem to be able to handle more than 4, a legacy restriction from the past. I've not yet tested if it's possible to create e. g. ad0s1, ad0s2, ad0s3, ad0s4 and ad0s5 with FreeBSD, but it should be possible. (Because multi-booting PCs respectively their operating systems eat up primary partitions like coockies, often people complain that they can't install FreeBSD because it requires a primary partition as well. Mostly, people don't have 4 OSes on their disks, but the one or two they often have (e. g. a Linux and a "Windows") have already occupied adX0..adX3.) -- Polytropon Magdeburg, Germany Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0 Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ... ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"
Re: 8.0-RELEASE and "dangerously dedicated" disks
On Wed, Dec 02, 2009 at 10:30:10AM -0500, Bob Johnson wrote: > On 11/28/09, Peggy Wilkins wrote: > > Can someone elaborate on what exactly this statement in the 8.0 > > detailed release notes means? > > > > http://www.freebsd.org/releases/8.0R/relnotes-detailed.html#FS > > > >> 2.2.5 File Systems > >> > >> ?dangerously dedicated? mode for the UFS file system is no longer > >> supported. > >> > >> Important: Such disks will need to be reformatted to work with this > >> release. > > > [...snip...] > > > > It doesn't make sense to me that "dangerously dedicated" could have an > > impact on UFS filesystems specifically. A partition table is just a > > partition table, regardless of what filesystems might be written on > > disks, yes? Am I misunderstanding something here? > > > > Unless someone has changed the meaning of the term in the last few > years, a "dangerously dedicated" disk is one that has the FreeBSD file > system on it with no partition table. It is basically an artifact of > the pre-Microsoft origin of BSD (there were reasons it stayed around, > but they ought to be ancient history by now). Since UFS is the > standard FreeBSD filesystem, DD disks contain UFS filesystems almost > by definition. > > So, to get to the main point of your confusion (and unless I am the > one that is very confused), "dangerously dedicated" disks do not have > partition tables. That's what makes them dangerous. It confuses things > that expect to find a partition table. > > If your partition name has an "s" (slice number) in it (e.g. ad2s1a) > it is not "dangerously dedicated". A "DD" disk partition would have a > name like "ad2a" with no slice number. At least, that's the way it > used to be. I quit using DD disks years ago when it became clear to me > that the unintended side effects aren't worth the few bytes you save. > Every once in a while a BIOS, or a utility, or something else pops up > that expects to find a partition table and gets confused without it. > It appears that it has happened again. > > > Thanks for helping to clear up my confusion... > > I hope I helped. Good. Except that in FreeBSD land you are talking about a slice table. To carry things forward consistently, the partition table is within a slice and describes FreeBSD partitions a..h (and more now I guess). Only in MS or Lunix land should primary divisions be called partitions and then they are _primary_ partitions. But, even some of the fdisk and other documentation still mucks this up and occasionally refers to slices as partitions. Maybe we can come up with some new terminology like 'blobs' and 'dollops' to get away from the problem. jerry > > -- > -- Bob Johnson >fbsdli...@gmail.com > ___ > freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions > To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org" > ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"
Re: 8.0-RELEASE and "dangerously dedicated" disks
On Wed, Dec 02, 2009 at 09:48:05AM -0800, Randi Harper wrote: > On Wed, Dec 2, 2009 at 7:23 AM, Jerry McAllister wrote: > > Some of the responses have said that UFS handling of 'Dangerously > > dedicated' has not gone away, just sysinstall handling of it. > > That may be true and if that is true, then you can probably still > > access dangerously dedicated drives. But, I would think it is a > > good opportunity to convert them while the uncertainty reigns. > > Once again, it has nothing at all to do with UFS. Clearly you didn't > search the mailing list archives like I said you should. I removed the > support from sysinstall because it was *broken* due to changes with > geom. It is not a sysinstall thing, it's a "oh look, sysinstall lets > you do something that doesn't work anymore" thing. You'd think if the > person that made these changes to sysinstall was commenting on the > issue, that should clear up any uncertainty. But you can go ahead > believing whatever makes you happy. OK. If it is a geom thing, then its a geom thing. The statement that it might be a good time to convert dangerously dedicated disks to sliced and partitioned drives is still the point of the piece you quoted and still is valid. ALthough I have made a few DD disks in the past, I do not run with them and so don't really care other than someone was asking about it. Since I do not use DD disks, I am assuming this doesn't affect me. For someone else, the best thing to do is back up their stuff, rebuild the disk with the appropriate utilities (fdisk/bsdlabel/newfs or whatever works for you) and restore their stuff. jerry > > -- randi > ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"
Re: 8.0-RELEASE and "dangerously dedicated" disks
On Wed, Dec 2, 2009 at 7:23 AM, Jerry McAllister wrote: > Some of the responses have said that UFS handling of 'Dangerously > dedicated' has not gone away, just sysinstall handling of it. > That may be true and if that is true, then you can probably still > access dangerously dedicated drives. But, I would think it is a > good opportunity to convert them while the uncertainty reigns. Once again, it has nothing at all to do with UFS. Clearly you didn't search the mailing list archives like I said you should. I removed the support from sysinstall because it was *broken* due to changes with geom. It is not a sysinstall thing, it's a "oh look, sysinstall lets you do something that doesn't work anymore" thing. You'd think if the person that made these changes to sysinstall was commenting on the issue, that should clear up any uncertainty. But you can go ahead believing whatever makes you happy. -- randi ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"
Re: 8.0-RELEASE and "dangerously dedicated" disks
On Tue, Dec 01, 2009 at 08:34:05PM -0800, Randi Harper wrote: > I'm going to just reply to all of these at once. > > On Tue, Dec 1, 2009 at 1:03 PM, Jerry McAllister wrote: > > On Tue, Dec 01, 2009 at 07:59:42AM -0500, Maxim Khitrov wrote: > > > >> On Sat, Nov 28, 2009 at 12:28 PM, Peggy Wilkins wrote: > >> > Due to history I won't go into, all my production (currently > >> > 7.2-RELEASE) systems are installed onto "dangerously dedicated" disks. > >> > What exactly do I need to do to upgrade them to 8.0? (I'm not asking > >> > for an upgrade procedure, I'm familiar with that, but rather, how this > >> > change impacts the upgrade.) I think that the suggestion that the > >> > disks need to be reformatted is extreme and I hope something less > >> > extreme will suffice. > > > Just to point out the obvious, you shouldn't use "dangerous" and > "production" in the same sentence. :) It may be a less than optimal idea, but many disks used in production have been implemented using the dangerously dedicated method. > >> > Also, just to be clear, does this statement refer to boot disks, data > >> > disks, or both? > >> > > >> > It doesn't make sense to me that "dangerously dedicated" could have an > >> > impact on UFS filesystems specifically. A partition table is just a > >> > partition table, regardless of what filesystems might be written on > >> > disks, yes? Am I misunderstanding something here? > > > > I don't know why it would have an affect, but they say it does. > > Did you see all the mailing list chatter about new installations > failing due to sysinstall not being able to newfs device names that > didn't exist? This is related. Also, a partition table isn't just a > partition table. It's a little more complex than that. It has > *nothing* to do with the filesystems inside. It has everything to do > with the way that FreeBSD looks at the drive to figure out what's on > it. See man pages for geom/gpart. There are others that have given a > better explanation than I can provide (marcus, juli). Search the > archives. Trust me, I didn't remove DD support from sysinstall just to > make life more complicated for everyone. I did this because as it > stands right now, it doesn't work. > > > > I take this to mean that any disk that is created without slice > > and partition within slice needs to be redone. Probably it can all > > be done in sysinstall, but you can do it with fdisk/bsdlabel/newfs. > > > Or sade, although sade hasn't yet been updated to reflect the lack of > DD support. Just don't use that option. Yah, there are other disk building utilities. > > It does not matter if it is a boot disk or just a data disk. It > > is whether or not it has a (one or more, up to 4) slice defined > > and within the slice[s] partitions defined which are turned in to > > filesystems. You can tell by the dev names in /etc/fstab. > > > > If they have the full device name /dev/da0s1a, ... da0s1h, they > > are NOT dangerously dedicated and you should not have to worry. > > > > If the machine is dual booted with some MS thing as the other OS, then > > it is very unlikely that they are dangerously dedicated. > > > > But, if they are like /dev/da0 or /dev/da0s1 (but with no 'a, b..h') > > then they are dangerously dedicated and you need to convert them. > > > What? No. 's1' refers to slice 1 (or partition 1, as you're referring > to it). bsdlabel is used inside this slice to create a partition for > each mount point (a,b,c, etc). See > http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en/articles/formatting-media/x76.html. This > documentation needs to be updated, but at least it'll give you a good > explanation of how it used to work. With DD mode, you're creating a > label against the drive itself, not a slice within. Yes, I am probably conflating a couple of similar things. But, I have seen 'dangerously dedicated' used to describe both situations and so included both here. > > > First you would have to back up the contents of the disk, partition > > by partition (mountable filesystem by mountable filesystem) however > > you have it. Since it is 'dangerously dedicated' it is likely you > > have a single filesystem per disk that needs backing up. > > Check out that backup to make sure it is readable. There is no > > going back. The backup can be done to tape or USB external disk > > or network or any other media that will not be affected, has room > > and can be written and read from the FreeBSD system. > > > I think you're confusing running newfs against an unlabeled slice with > DD mode. See above. DD mode means no slices, just a label for > partitions. Not 'a single filesystem'. See above.I have seen it used both ways. I know the difference, but choose to include both possibilities. > > for a less extreme measure. The poster clearly has some idea as to > what is going on and probably doesn't need her hand held in setting up > a new drive.> Well, in the past it has usually meant mak
Re: 8.0-RELEASE and "dangerously dedicated" disks
On 11/28/09, Peggy Wilkins wrote: > Can someone elaborate on what exactly this statement in the 8.0 > detailed release notes means? > > http://www.freebsd.org/releases/8.0R/relnotes-detailed.html#FS > >> 2.2.5 File Systems >> >> “dangerously dedicated” mode for the UFS file system is no longer >> supported. >> >> Important: Such disks will need to be reformatted to work with this >> release. > [...snip...] > > It doesn't make sense to me that "dangerously dedicated" could have an > impact on UFS filesystems specifically. A partition table is just a > partition table, regardless of what filesystems might be written on > disks, yes? Am I misunderstanding something here? > Unless someone has changed the meaning of the term in the last few years, a "dangerously dedicated" disk is one that has the FreeBSD file system on it with no partition table. It is basically an artifact of the pre-Microsoft origin of BSD (there were reasons it stayed around, but they ought to be ancient history by now). Since UFS is the standard FreeBSD filesystem, DD disks contain UFS filesystems almost by definition. So, to get to the main point of your confusion (and unless I am the one that is very confused), "dangerously dedicated" disks do not have partition tables. That's what makes them dangerous. It confuses things that expect to find a partition table. If your partition name has an "s" (slice number) in it (e.g. ad2s1a) it is not "dangerously dedicated". A "DD" disk partition would have a name like "ad2a" with no slice number. At least, that's the way it used to be. I quit using DD disks years ago when it became clear to me that the unintended side effects aren't worth the few bytes you save. Every once in a while a BIOS, or a utility, or something else pops up that expects to find a partition table and gets confused without it. It appears that it has happened again. > Thanks for helping to clear up my confusion... I hope I helped. -- -- Bob Johnson fbsdli...@gmail.com ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"
Re: 8.0-RELEASE and "dangerously dedicated" disks
On Tue, Dec 1, 2009 at 11:34 PM, Randi Harper wrote: > I'm going to just reply to all of these at once. > > On Tue, Dec 1, 2009 at 1:03 PM, Jerry McAllister wrote: >> On Tue, Dec 01, 2009 at 07:59:42AM -0500, Maxim Khitrov wrote: >> >>> On Sat, Nov 28, 2009 at 12:28 PM, Peggy Wilkins wrote: >>> > Due to history I won't go into, all my production (currently >>> > 7.2-RELEASE) systems are installed onto "dangerously dedicated" disks. >>> > What exactly do I need to do to upgrade them to 8.0? (I'm not asking >>> > for an upgrade procedure, I'm familiar with that, but rather, how this >>> > change impacts the upgrade.) I think that the suggestion that the >>> > disks need to be reformatted is extreme and I hope something less >>> > extreme will suffice. > > > Just to point out the obvious, you shouldn't use "dangerous" and > "production" in the same sentence. :) > That depends on why "dangerous" was put into the name. In this case, it's a flag to indicate that we should understand what's going on underneath before using the feature in question. > >>> > Also, just to be clear, does this statement refer to boot disks, data >>> > disks, or both? >>> > >>> > It doesn't make sense to me that "dangerously dedicated" could have an >>> > impact on UFS filesystems specifically. A partition table is just a >>> > partition table, regardless of what filesystems might be written on >>> > disks, yes? Am I misunderstanding something here? >> >> I don't know why it would have an affect, but they say it does. > > > Did you see all the mailing list chatter about new installations > failing due to sysinstall not being able to newfs device names that > didn't exist? This is related. Also, a partition table isn't just a > partition table. It's a little more complex than that. It has > *nothing* to do with the filesystems inside. It has everything to do > with the way that FreeBSD looks at the drive to figure out what's on > it. See man pages for geom/gpart. There are others that have given a > better explanation than I can provide (marcus, juli). Search the > archives. Trust me, I didn't remove DD support from sysinstall just to > make life more complicated for everyone. I did this because as it > stands right now, it doesn't work. > > > It's not a filesystem thing. See above. > > -- randi > I think this is where the misunderstanding is. Based on what you said, the documentation should read "dangerously dedicated mode is no longer supported in sysinstall," is that correct? If we don't use sysinstall for anything, the change doesn't affect us. The current wording leads people to believe that something was changed in the FreeBSD geom internals that would, for example, prevent DD disks from being recognized in 8.0. As I read geom(4), there is nothing new in the tasting section about the way devices are offered to geom classes. - Max ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"
Re: 8.0-RELEASE and "dangerously dedicated" disks
> Did you see all the mailing list chatter about new installations > failing due to sysinstall not being able to newfs device names that > didn't exist? This is related. Also, a partition table isn't just a > partition table. It's a little more complex than that. It has > *nothing* to do with the filesystems inside. It has everything to do > with the way that FreeBSD looks at the drive to figure out what's on > it. See man pages for geom/gpart. There are others that have given a > better explanation than I can provide (marcus, juli). Search the > archives. Trust me, I didn't remove DD support from sysinstall just to > make life more complicated for everyone. I did this because as it > stands right now, it doesn't work. Sigh, correction. marcel, not marcus. -- randi ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"
Re: 8.0-RELEASE and "dangerously dedicated" disks
I'm going to just reply to all of these at once. On Tue, Dec 1, 2009 at 1:03 PM, Jerry McAllister wrote: > On Tue, Dec 01, 2009 at 07:59:42AM -0500, Maxim Khitrov wrote: > >> On Sat, Nov 28, 2009 at 12:28 PM, Peggy Wilkins wrote: >> > Due to history I won't go into, all my production (currently >> > 7.2-RELEASE) systems are installed onto "dangerously dedicated" disks. >> > What exactly do I need to do to upgrade them to 8.0? (I'm not asking >> > for an upgrade procedure, I'm familiar with that, but rather, how this >> > change impacts the upgrade.) I think that the suggestion that the >> > disks need to be reformatted is extreme and I hope something less >> > extreme will suffice. Just to point out the obvious, you shouldn't use "dangerous" and "production" in the same sentence. :) >> > Also, just to be clear, does this statement refer to boot disks, data >> > disks, or both? >> > >> > It doesn't make sense to me that "dangerously dedicated" could have an >> > impact on UFS filesystems specifically. A partition table is just a >> > partition table, regardless of what filesystems might be written on >> > disks, yes? Am I misunderstanding something here? > > I don't know why it would have an affect, but they say it does. Did you see all the mailing list chatter about new installations failing due to sysinstall not being able to newfs device names that didn't exist? This is related. Also, a partition table isn't just a partition table. It's a little more complex than that. It has *nothing* to do with the filesystems inside. It has everything to do with the way that FreeBSD looks at the drive to figure out what's on it. See man pages for geom/gpart. There are others that have given a better explanation than I can provide (marcus, juli). Search the archives. Trust me, I didn't remove DD support from sysinstall just to make life more complicated for everyone. I did this because as it stands right now, it doesn't work. > I take this to mean that any disk that is created without slice > and partition within slice needs to be redone. Probably it can all > be done in sysinstall, but you can do it with fdisk/bsdlabel/newfs. Or sade, although sade hasn't yet been updated to reflect the lack of DD support. Just don't use that option. > It does not matter if it is a boot disk or just a data disk. It > is whether or not it has a (one or more, up to 4) slice defined > and within the slice[s] partitions defined which are turned in to > filesystems. You can tell by the dev names in /etc/fstab. > > If they have the full device name /dev/da0s1a, ... da0s1h, they > are NOT dangerously dedicated and you should not have to worry. > > If the machine is dual booted with some MS thing as the other OS, then > it is very unlikely that they are dangerously dedicated. > > But, if they are like /dev/da0 or /dev/da0s1 (but with no 'a, b..h') > then they are dangerously dedicated and you need to convert them. What? No. 's1' refers to slice 1 (or partition 1, as you're referring to it). bsdlabel is used inside this slice to create a partition for each mount point (a,b,c, etc). See http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en/articles/formatting-media/x76.html. This documentation needs to be updated, but at least it'll give you a good explanation of how it used to work. With DD mode, you're creating a label against the drive itself, not a slice within. > First you would have to back up the contents of the disk, partition > by partition (mountable filesystem by mountable filesystem) however > you have it. Since it is 'dangerously dedicated' it is likely you > have a single filesystem per disk that needs backing up. > Check out that backup to make sure it is readable. There is no > going back. The backup can be done to tape or USB external disk > or network or any other media that will not be affected, has room > and can be written and read from the FreeBSD system. I think you're confusing running newfs against an unlabeled slice with DD mode. See above. DD mode means no slices, just a label for partitions. Not 'a single filesystem'. >> > >> > Thanks for helping to clear up my confusion... >> > >> > plw >> >> Peggy, >> >> Were you able to find an answer for this? I also have a number of >> servers and firewalls that use dangerously dedicated disks (boot and >> data). I don't see why UFS would care if it's mounted from ad1a vs. >> ad1s1a. It's not a filesystem thing. See above. -- randi ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"
Re: 8.0-RELEASE and "dangerously dedicated" disks
On Tue, Dec 01, 2009 at 07:59:42AM -0500, Maxim Khitrov wrote: > On Sat, Nov 28, 2009 at 12:28 PM, Peggy Wilkins wrote: > > Can someone elaborate on what exactly this statement in the 8.0 > > detailed release notes means? > > > > http://www.freebsd.org/releases/8.0R/relnotes-detailed.html#FS > > > >> 2.2.5 File Systems > >> > >> ???dangerously dedicated??? mode for the UFS file system is no longer > >> supported. > >> > >> Important: Such disks will need to be reformatted to work with this > >> release. > > > > Due to history I won't go into, all my production (currently > > 7.2-RELEASE) systems are installed onto "dangerously dedicated" disks. > > What exactly do I need to do to upgrade them to 8.0? (I'm not asking > > for an upgrade procedure, I'm familiar with that, but rather, how this > > change impacts the upgrade.) I think that the suggestion that the > > disks need to be reformatted is extreme and I hope something less > > extreme will suffice. > > > > Also, just to be clear, does this statement refer to boot disks, data > > disks, or both? > > > > It doesn't make sense to me that "dangerously dedicated" could have an > > impact on UFS filesystems specifically. A partition table is just a > > partition table, regardless of what filesystems might be written on > > disks, yes? Am I misunderstanding something here? I don't know why it would have an affect, but they say it does. I take this to mean that any disk that is created without slice and partition within slice needs to be redone.Probably it can all be done in sysinstall, but you can do it with fdisk/bsdlabel/newfs. It does not matter if it is a boot disk or just a data disk. It is whether or not it has a (one or more, up to 4) slice defined and within the slice[s] partitions defined which are turned in to filesystems. You can tell by the dev names in /etc/fstab. If they have the full device name /dev/da0s1a, ... da0s1h, they are NOT dangerously dedicated and you should not have to worry. If the machine is dual booted with some MS thing as the other OS, then it is very unlikely that they are dangerously dedicated. But, if they are like /dev/da0 or /dev/da0s1 (but with no 'a, b..h') then they are dangerously dedicated and you need to convert them. First you would have to back up the contents of the disk, partition by partition (mountable filesystem by mountable filesystem) however you have it. Since it is 'dangerously dedicated' it is likely you have a single filesystem per disk that needs backing up. Check out that backup to make sure it is readable. There is no going back. The backup can be done to tape or USB external disk or network or any other media that will not be affected, has room and can be written and read from the FreeBSD system. Then, boot a FreeBSD system that does not have the disk in question mounted. Probably you will need to use a 'fixit' image from the install CDs. Just for example, lets say, once your are booted, the disk to be converted shows up as /dev/ad1 and that it was all in one file system and that you want it to continue to be all in one file system. Do the following: (This makes a bootable drive and bootable partition with the standard FreeBSD MBR) (The dd-s just make sure old stuff is cleared) dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/ad1 bs=512 count=1025 fdisk -BI ad1 dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/ad1s1 bs=512 count=1025 bsdlabel -w -B ad1s1 bsdlabel -e ad1s1 The last bsdlabel command will bring up an edit screen. I suggest that you make at least some swap on this disk. So, you will want partition 'b' for swap and partition 'a' for everything else. Edit the partition label so it looks like: # /dev/ad0s3: 8 partitions: #size offsetfstype [fsize bsize bps/cpg] a: 8729532204.2BSD2048 16384 49160 b:** swap c: 898676100unused 0 0 # "raw" part, don't edit Those sizes are just an example. Use sizes that fit your disk. Using a * as the last size means it will use all remaining disk and the * in offset means it will calculate it properly. Of course, don't do anything to the 'c' line. Once that is done, newfs the partition to make a filesystem. newfs /dev/ad1s1a Note that fdisk and bsdlabel do not need the full path. They figure it out. But, the last I knew, newfs still does.Probably the defaults on newfs will work just fine. If you have huge numbers of tiny files you might want to adjust '-i' bytes per inode to increase number of inodes. You might also want to turn on softupdates with '-U'. jerry > > > > Thanks for helping to clear up my confusion... > > > > plw > > Peggy, > > Were you able to find an answer for this? I also have a number of > servers and firewalls that use dangerously dedicated disks (boot and > data). I don't see why UFS would care if it's mounted from ad1a vs. > ad1s1a. > > - Max > ___ > freebsd-questio
Re: 8.0-RELEASE and "dangerously dedicated" disks
On Sat, Nov 28, 2009 at 12:28 PM, Peggy Wilkins wrote: > Can someone elaborate on what exactly this statement in the 8.0 > detailed release notes means? > > http://www.freebsd.org/releases/8.0R/relnotes-detailed.html#FS > >> 2.2.5 File Systems >> >> “dangerously dedicated” mode for the UFS file system is no longer supported. >> >> Important: Such disks will need to be reformatted to work with this release. > > Due to history I won't go into, all my production (currently > 7.2-RELEASE) systems are installed onto "dangerously dedicated" disks. > What exactly do I need to do to upgrade them to 8.0? (I'm not asking > for an upgrade procedure, I'm familiar with that, but rather, how this > change impacts the upgrade.) I think that the suggestion that the > disks need to be reformatted is extreme and I hope something less > extreme will suffice. > > Also, just to be clear, does this statement refer to boot disks, data > disks, or both? > > It doesn't make sense to me that "dangerously dedicated" could have an > impact on UFS filesystems specifically. A partition table is just a > partition table, regardless of what filesystems might be written on > disks, yes? Am I misunderstanding something here? > > Thanks for helping to clear up my confusion... > > plw Peggy, Were you able to find an answer for this? I also have a number of servers and firewalls that use dangerously dedicated disks (boot and data). I don't see why UFS would care if it's mounted from ad1a vs. ad1s1a. - Max ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"
